


Chapter Forty-Nine: The Long, Hard Road Out Of Hell

by CavalierConvoy



Series: MTMTE Series One: Shoot Straight with a Crooked Gun [50]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers Generation One, Transformers Generation Two
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Bad Decisions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Solidarity, Wrong Choice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 22:58:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3913840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavalierConvoy/pseuds/CavalierConvoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not a good time to be alone. Four friends are in silent agreement to be one another's cloak and comfort through the healing. But those demons within sense a moment of weakness and kick down the door to drag Artemis back into her past, a snap decision could cost more than what had already been lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chapter Forty-Nine: The Long, Hard Road Out Of Hell

I want to fly into your sun  
Need faith to make me numb  
Live like a teenage Christ  
I'm a saint, got a date with suicide  
—["The Long, Hard Road Out of Hell" ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNEolxBmso)by Marilyn Manson, from _Lest We Forget: The Best of_  
  


Artemis lacked even the drive to get drunk, but, instead of returning to the medibay as initially planned, she followed Trailcutter and Hoist back to their hab, along with Grapple. Before, all the wanted was to stay by Magnus's side; now, she was uncertain, conflicted. Could she walk through those hallways again, scrubbed clean on the surface but the memory remaining?

_I've walked down this corridor before; not on the ship, but Autobot City, thirteen stels ago; then, the only time kept was before the attack, and after the attack. Nothing else._

_Before. After._

She was not thinking straight. Artemis had no clue where Cavalier went, or even if she had attended the funeral; guilt sank in; she had not actively searched out her roommate. It had been Trailcutter who sent Cavalier a text to ascertain where the Minibot was, and to let her know that Artemis was with friends.

_Be wary of those who can cold-read you; best to keep everything internal, give the universe a cold, unyielding exterior._

_Keep it buried, let it fester...when does it end?_

"She's with Smokescreen and Slapdash," her companion reported, staring down at his comm. "They're in Smokescreen's hab...Art, what's that word?" He held out the device for his companion to translate.

Fighting to maintain a neutral expression, she glanced at the screen. "Tee-Bee-Ell-Tee...Tabletopping. Roleplaying games." Her fingers gripped his hip plating as that intimate rise of anxiety simmered in her fuel tank. _Not now — please, not now._

_Emotion is a weakness. Show emotion, expose one's weakness. The chink the armour. That's where they're going to strike._

_This was one battle, an isolated incident! I'm with friends, comrades; I can afford to drop my guard —_

_It's not always about you, Arty. You're too predictable. You know the best way to wound you is to go for those you care about._

Trailcutter caught the gesture, placing his hand at her waist, running his thumb against her spinal strut. Comfort, helping marginally. _'Cutter, get me someplace private, please!_ She glanced up at him, optics wide, pleading, as Hoist and Grapple discussed something to do for the evening.

"We need a distraction," Grapple suggested. "Art, what's the movie with the crazy urban foot chases? The one with the impossible architecture?"

"Was it Earthian, Sirian, other?" Hoist prompted.

_Primus, please, I can't...not in front...._

"I think that's one of Cav's," Trailcutter stated, flipping his thumb to the hallway. "But it's on a physical disc. C'mon, beautiful, you know right where it is."

His question helped get her head above water, if only temporary. "As so long as she didn't reorganise, that is," Artemis added, hoping she imagined the tremble in her voice.

'We'll be right back," Trailcutter concluded, leading her outside the hab and into the hallway. Keeping physical contact with her, he allowed her to lead the way. "Do you want to go back to your place?" he questioned, keeping his voice low as though afraid to be overheard. 

"Dammit, don't you see?" she continued; the fuse caught, burning its way up to her spark. "Overlord had been on board all this time! Red found out, tried to warn us!"

He embraced her, rougher than he intended as concern fused with his own panic. Pressing his face against her helm, he whispered with a brisk clip, "Art, you're fifty clicks to meltdown and I need you to tell me what I can do to help."

She started, halted, stammered, fought the hold, clung on. Knees gave way, and she slumped against Trailcutter, ragdolling in his embrace. 

A snap decision: he gathered her up and bolted, the pounding of his heavy-footed run echoing hard in his audio receptors. Medibay, or Rung's office, those would have been the right places to take her, but instead, he brought her to the closest place, her hab, tapping out the keycode to open the door. 

Artemis was ... muttering now, a fearful chant, in Sirian, her optics wide but unseeing. Shaking in his arms. 

"It's okay, Art, you're not there," he sat hard enough for the slab to protest, holding her tight, rocking. "You're not there. You're on the Lost Light. You're with me, in your hab, on your berth. You're not there..." he repeated the words, added encouragements, endearments, refusing to let go. 

Her arm flailed and she twisted in his hold; ratcheted back, and struck out, a flat-palmed strike for the spark.

Aeons-old instinct took over as he slammed up a shield, and for a click, he cursed himself for not rolling with the hit, that he trusted her — 

— then he saw the shiv, the red crystalline blade extended from its sheathe under her right arm, glancing upward across the force field and missing his cheek by millimetres.

She froze, meeting his optics, as coherency returned to her face, followed by fear.

 _Yep, not my best idea._ "Hey, back with me, beautiful?" he mustered a smile. "It's okay. Just...talk to me, okay?" Now his voice trembled, and he fought to quell it.

And it clicked. The Temptoria campaign, when they had been teasing him about his new guns, and she had mentioned the crystek ore, its unique red, crystalline composition....

_Worry about it later...don't show her that!_

What was 'that'? 

_Fear._

No. No, it — she wouldn't...not intentionally....

_Not intentionally._

Artemis's optics flickered, and she glanced down, at the unsheathed blade. Stared at it. Retracted it, flexed her hand. Kept her gaze downward.

Finally, "Coulda killed you." A croak, as though unused to speaking for some time.

"Naw," he exhaled, waving away the comment while plastering his best superficial grin. "Got that annoying habit of mine. I see a sudden movement and it's shields up. Reflexes like a petrorabbit, I've got. Sometimes it pays to spook easily, yeah?"

"Don't do that," she hissed, still downcast. "Not when...please, just don't."

The facade dropped, and, after a few false starts, he demanded, "Then what do I do to help?"

"Don't. Um. Just space. All I need. You didn't know." Her shoulders rose, fell, her hand flexed in and out of a fist. "A click. Please."

He resisted the urge to reach out to her, to gather her back into a reassuring embrace. Her posture was still triggered, and while convincing himself he was respecting her space, his most primal circuits were screaming _fear_. "It's gonna be all right," he whispered. "I'm sorry I made the wrong call, but I want to know how to help you."

"Damaged," she growled. "Better if you give me space. When I do that, that is. Restraining me...it only makes it worse." Exhaust whistled through her vents, and she touched the back of his hand, a featherlight gesture as though testing the waters. "I... had hoped you wouldn't have to see that."

"You've been under a lot of stress, Art," he reminded, succumbing to the urge to cup her cheek. "Just take the time you need. To collect yourself, okay?"

"I almost killed you."

"Pfft. 'Almost'." _Close quarters, aiming for the spark — oh. Not now! Don't think about it —_ "And besides, that toothpick might — might — rupture a spark casing. Worst I would have had was a stern talking-to from Ratchet as he patched me up." Yes, he was lying, and he hated it, but his primary interest at that juncture was getting Artemis out of her despondency. "And that's if it got past my early warning system. You know why I don't spar with you? You'd be getting total Wrecker up and I'd just be standing there, shrugging apologetically. See? This is me shrugging apologetically." He did as promised, without receiving a rise. "Don't worry about it." _Primus, just look at me! Acknowledge that I'm not holding it against you!_ "Look, I'm not going away. I'm not leaving you behind. And yes, I'm scared as hell, but it's because I don't know how to help you."

Now she gripped his hand. _It's a start._ "If I do that again...? Don't hold me. Don't try to restrain me. Just...I can't be restrained. Keep talking to me. If I hear you — anyone outside — I can pull out of it quicker. Um." At last, she looked up, meeting his optics, her own flickering, focusing. "Guidelines. Just give me space when I have an attack. Keep an optic on me. I generally stay in one place."

"Hey, Art?"

It was her turn to muster a smile, that superficial attempt at a brave, unhesitant expression he knew all to well nearly every time he looked into a mirror. She shouldn't have that expression. Never that. 

So many things to say, to encourage, to demand of her. Instead, "When you're ready," he settled, "please, talk to someone. Even if it isn't me. Just...talk to someone."

The facade crumbled, and her gaze listed, but she squared her shoulders and brought her head back up. "I was ... captured," Artemis admitted in a tone as casual as reading off map coordinates. "Our plan failed, I was taken prisoner. And ... tortured ... " the word was inaudible " ... for information. I don't remember what happened, what kind of information they were looking for. And on the third sol...." she shook her head, then leaned forward, resting her brow on his chest. "I slipped. And rather than pulling myself out, I dug further down because it was the only way I could cope with the situation. And it wasn't until we found Hot Rod — Rodimus — that I started to climb out of the pit I've made for myself. And when we came back to Cybertron and...well."

Silence stretched past the better part of five cycles before Trailcutter cleared his throat. "Hey, Art?"

"Hm?" Barely a thrum against his plating.

"Can I hold you now?"

She brought her arm around his waist and nodded. "I'd like that."

 

*

 

Hoist and Grapple had given up waiting for their companions and were midway through Brazil by the time Trailcutter and Artemis returned, empty-handed.

"Got bored waiting for you two," Grapple grumbled. "Still trying to figure out the obsession with ductwork in this film."

"Are you all right, Art?" Hoist questioned. Unlike his friend, the green Autobot could pick up a shift in a fellow mech's electromagnetic field.

"Two megacycles ago we were at a funeral," she reminded. "But yes, I'm better than I was when we left here." To Grapple, who had his mouth open as though to ask a question he was uncertain how to word, she added, "I had an anxiety attack. Stress of the day compounded, and ... it triggered. Didn't want to freak you guys out, that's all. Just glad it didn't happen at the service," She claimed the spot next to Hoist, as Trailcutter sat at her right. "I...get them. Not as much as I used to."

"So what snaps you out of it?" Grapple tossed back a handful of jellied energon treats into his mouth. "Like the power of love?" There was strict innocence in his question.

Trailcutter made a "cut!" gesture over Artemis's head; if she had noticed, she did not acknowledge. Instead, she harrumphed. "Now that would be one hell of a happily-ever-after — if only it were that easy. Best to stay just outside of melee range and talk me down. Still working on dealing with it."

"Is it a good idea to be discussing this?" Hoist questioned, directing it to Artemis but flicking his gaze to meet Trailcutter's.

"I'm good, I just need to work things out in my head," she reassured. "Um...I guess I should disclose some of my...ticks. Warnings. How do deal with them. Um. I'm sorry, but...it's been a while since I've been with those I can trust."

"That would be us," Trailcutter reminded, resting a hand against her spinal strut. "Art, at the risk of sounding like a skipping hard drive..."

"I know, and truth is, I don't like to be a loner. But my...ticks...they take over. I scare people away. But if I don't get it out of my system, it just builds up...."

"And you'll have another attack," Hoist presumed. To Grapple, he added, "This, my friend, is called a hostage situation."

Artemis barked a laugh. "Making a joke at my expense, have you finally accepted me into your circle?" 

Hoist regarded her, one brow cocked. "I'm sorry; I hadn't meant it in that manner...." He trailed off, now both optics wide as a smile — a real smile — stretched across Artemis's face. "I guess this is me admitting we're in this together. I...I know being alone is sometimes the worst outcome in a situation."

"It's like those nature documentaries we used to watch with Beachcomber back on Earth," Grapple offered a box of energon candies to the mechs on the slab, "You know, there was that one about rehabilitating animals outside their natural habitat that couldn't be released back into the wild because they were either too damaged or too docile...?" 

Hoist cleared his throat, diverting his optics to the screen. He did pass along the proffered candies without taking any.

"'Docile' would not be the word I'd use in any way, shape, or form," Trailcutter accepted the box in Artemis's stead, reaching over with his right hand. Shaking out a palm-full into the black and chrome mech's awaiting hand, he chuckled. "Maybe more like _Lion King_. Remember that one? The one with the singing animals...?"

"And Jeremy Irons?" Artemis added, popping a couple of the candies in her mouth; they exploded on her tongue, sweet and spicy. _Getting a reputation with these things, it seems._ "Right up there with Von Sydow, Mifune, and Dalton as my favourite human actors."

"That list keeps getting longer," Trailcutter chuckled, relaxing against the wall and resting his left hand on Artemis's hip plating. 

Artemis regarded Hoist, then Grapple, before settling her head against Trailcutter's shoulder. "Primus, I don't want to ruin this moment," she muttered, more to herself than the others.

"Want to know what I think?" Hoist beat Trailcutter to the response. "I'm thinking there's going to be more of these moments. With or without the sadness. Hopefully without."

"Grapple, pull out my foot locker and pull out the blue bottle," Trailcutter ordered. "I think this deserves a toast."

"I'll drink to that," Hoist agreed.

 _Distraction._ This time, the word did not simmer in the bottom of the tank. 

After all, there was still time.

 

NEXT CHAPTER: March or Die


End file.
